MESSINA – Born and raised in Messina, with a passion for travel and writing. Thus reads the official biography of the writer from Messina Elisa Barbaro, returned to Sicily after several years of living “far from home”, author of the novels “His name was April” and the most recent “The secret path of jasmine”, both award-winning. Despite writing “out of passion”, Barbaro has collected literary recognition over the last 15 years, including with short stories.
Elisa Barbaro: “I was already writing as a child”
Writing has always been a travel companion for Elisa Barbaro: “Since I was a child I have had the need to put on paper the numerous fantastic stories that were spinning in my head. Thus they were born, imaginary themes on notebook sheets that I gave to classmates to show them my esteem. In high school I wrote passionate articles in the school newspaper against the injustices suffered, in my opinion, by the students. Then I abandoned writing to rediscover it when I entered a short story competition and won. Everything else started from there.”
The prices
The “rest” are precisely the many awards: “Literary awards are recognition of your work: a jury evaluates, judges and appreciates what you have written. For me it is a testimony to the validity of my writing. More than the best prize, I would say that the best experience was that during the week of the Sanremo Festival, at the Palafiori: the awards ceremony at the Casa Sanremo Writers Contest, the interviews, the photos, the copy signing. For me it was the first time at such a large-scale national event.”
The Turin Book Fair
And now with “The secret path of jasmine” he will also be at the Turin Book Fair: “My publisher, Alfio Grasso, has already organized some events for the May of Books, a presentation at Misterbianco on 14 May and we will be present at the Fair of the Book of Turin from 9th to 13th, in pavilion 2, stand M126”.
The future: “I write because I love doing it”
Then a look at the future. The Messina native has clear ideas: “A writer should not expect anything from writing; he writes because he loves to do it. If you write to achieve success, to please your publisher, to please readers, you are no longer at the service of art, but you become a shopkeeper and you have to make compromises, which often do not go well with freedom. I write out of passion, I’m not aiming for the Strega Prize.”
Messina “is my fixed point”
And finally, another look, this time at his homeland: “You appreciate Messina more when you live far away from it, when you clash less with its contradictions. I celebrated her in my first novel ‘Her name was April’. I lived in Messina for 36 years, here are my memories, my schoolmates, my closest friends. When you go to live in another city as an adult it is difficult to make new friends, you have to fit into already established groups, risking being the third wheel. You have to learn new social mechanisms. Messina is my fixed point, my solid root, the people I know and who think like me.”
